Early life

Scorsese was born in Queens, New York. His family moved to the Little Italy section of Manhattan before he started school.[10] His father, Charles Scorsese (1913–93), and mother, Catherine Scorsese (born Cappa; 1912–97), both worked in New York’s Garment District. His father was a clothes presser and an actor, and his mother was a seamstress and an actress.[11] His father’s parents emigrated from Polizzi Generosa, in the province of Palermo, Sicily, and his mother was also of Italian descent. Her parents, too, were from Palermo. Scorsese was raised in a devoutly Catholic environment.[4] As a boy he had asthma and could not play sports or do any activities with other children and so his parents and his older brother would often take him to movie theaters; it was at this stage in his life that he developed a passion for cinema.

Scorsese has cited Sabu and Victor Mature as his favorite actors during his youth and has spoken of the influence of the 1947 Powell-Pressburger film Black Narcissus, whose innovative techniques later impacted his filmmaking.[12] Enamored of historical epics in his adolescence, at least two films of the genre, Land of the Pharaohs and El Cid, appear to have had a deep and lasting impact on his cinematic psyche. Scorsese also developed an admiration for neorealist cinema at this time. He recounted its influence in a documentary on Italian neorealism, and commented on how Bicycle Thieves alongside Paisà, Rome, Open City inspired him and how this influenced his view or portrayal of his Sicilian roots. In his documentary, Il Mio Viaggio in Italia, Scorsese noted that the Sicilian episode of Roberto Rossellini’s Paisà, which he first saw on television alongside his relatives, who were themselves Sicilian immigrants, made a significant impact on his life.[13] He acknowledges owing a great debt to the French New Wave and has stated that "the French New Wave has influenced all filmmakers who have worked since, whether they saw the films or not."[14] He has also cited filmmakers including Satyajit Ray, Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Federico Fellini as a major influence on his career.[13][15][16][17][18] His initial desire to become a priest[19] while attending Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx gave way to cinema and consequently, Scorsese enrolled in NYU’s University College of Arts and Science, (now known as the College of Arts and Science), where he earned a B.A. in English in 1964. He went on to earn his M.F.A. from NYU’++s School of the Arts (now known as the Tisch School of the Arts) in 1966, a year after the school was founded.[20]

In 1967, Scorsese made his first feature-length film, the black and white I Call First, which was later retitled Who's That Knocking at My Door with his fellow students actor Harvey Keitel and editor Thelma Schoonmaker, both of whom were to become long-term collaborators. This film was intended to be the first of Scorsese's semiautobiographical J. R. Trilogy, which also would have included a later film, Mean Streets.

1970s

Scorsese became friends with the influential "movie brats" of the 1970s: Steven Spielberg.[6] It was Brian De Palma who introduced Scorsese to Robert De Niro. During this period he worked as the assistant director and one of the editors on the documentary Woodstock (1970) and met actor–director John Cassavetes, who would also go on to become a close friend and mentor. Scorsese is also credited as one of the cameramen who photographed the infamous late-1969 Altamont rock festival for the Rolling Stones film Gimme Shelter (1970).

Mean Streets

In 1972, Scorsese made the Depression-era exploiter Boxcar Bertha for B-movie producer Roger Corman, who also helped directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, and John Sayles launch their careers. It was Corman who taught Scorsese that entertaining films could be shot with next to no money or time, preparing the young director well for the challenges to come with Mean Streets. Following the film’s release, Cassavetes encouraged Scorsese to make the films that he wanted to make rather than someone else’s projects.

Championed by influential film critic Pauline Kael, Mean Streets was a breakthrough for Scorsese, De Niro, and Keitel. By now the signature Scorsese style was in place: macho posturing, bloody violence, Catholic guilt and redemption, gritty New York locale (though the majority of Mean Streets was actually shot in Los Angeles), rapid-fire editing and a soundtrack with contemporary music. Although the film was innovative, its wired atmosphere, edgy documentary style, and gritty street-level direction owed a debt to directors Cassavetes, Samuel Fuller and early Jean-Luc Godard.[23]

In 1974, actress Ellen Burstyn chose Scorsese to direct her in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress. Although well regarded, the film remains an anomaly in the director's early career as it focuses on a central female character. Returning to Little Italy to explore his ethnic roots, Scorsese next came up with Italianamerican, a documentary featuring his parents Charles and Catherine Scorsese.

Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver followed in 1976—Scorsese's dark, urban nightmare of one lonely man's slow descent into insanity.

The film established Scorsese as an accomplished filmmaker and also brought attention to cinematographer Michael Chapman, whose style tends towards high contrasts, strong colors, and complex camera movements. The film starred Robert De Niro as the troubled and psychotic Travis Bickle. The film co-starred Jodie Foster in a highly controversial role as an underage prostitute, and Harvey Keitel as her pimp, Matthew, called "Sport."

Already controversial upon its release, Taxi Driver hit the headlines again five years later, when John Hinckley, Jr. made an assassination attempt on then-president Ronald Reagan. He subsequently blamed his act on his obsession with Jodie Foster’s Taxi Driver character (in the film, De Niro's character, Travis Bickle, makes an assassination attempt on a senator).[25]

Taxi Driver won the Palme d’Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival,[26] also receiving four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, although all were unsuccessful.

New York, New York and The Last Waltz

The critical success of Taxi Driver encouraged Scorsese to move ahead with his first big-budget project: the highly stylized musical New York, New York. This tribute to Scorsese’s home town and the classic Hollywood musical was a box-office failure.

New York, New York was the director's third collaboration with Robert De Niro, co-starring with Liza Minnelli. The film is best remembered today for the title theme song, which was popularized by Frank Sinatra. Although possessing Scorsese's usual visual panache and stylistic bravura, many critics felt its enclosed studio-bound atmosphere left it leaden in comparison with his earlier work.

Despite its weak reception, the film is positively regarded by some critics. Richard Brody in The New Yorker wrote: "For Scorsese, a lifelong cinephile, the essence of New York could be found in its depiction in classic Hollywood movies. Remarkably, his backward-looking tribute to the golden age of musicals and noirish romantic melodramas turned out to be one of his most freewheeling and personal films."[27]

Another Scorsese-directed documentary, titled American Boy, also appeared in 1978, focusing on Steven Prince, the cocky gun salesman who appeared in Taxi Driver. A period of wild partying followed, damaging the director’s already fragile health.

Scorsese also helped provide footage for the documentary Elvis on Tour.

1980s

Raging Bull

By several accounts (Scorsese’s included), Robert De Niro practically saved Scorsese's life when he persuaded Scorsese to kick his cocaine addiction to make his highly regarded film Raging Bull. Convinced that he would never make another movie, he poured his energies into making this violent biopic of middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta, calling it a Kamikaze method of film-making.[28] The film is widely viewed as a masterpiece and was voted the greatest film of the 1980s by Britain's Sight & Sound magazine.[29][30] It received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Robert De Niro, and Scorsese’s first for Best Director. De Niro won, as did Thelma Schoonmaker for editing, but Best Director went to Robert Redford for Ordinary People.

Raging Bull, filmed in high contrast black and white, is where Scorsese's style reached its zenith: Taxi Driver and New York, New York had used elements of expressionism to replicate psychological points of view, but here the style was taken to new extremes, employing extensive slow-motion, complex tracking shots, and extravagant distortion of perspective (for example, the size of boxing rings would change from fight to fight).[31] Thematically too, the concerns carried on from Mean Streets and Taxi Driver: insecure males, violence, guilt, and redemption.

Although the screenplay for Raging Bull was credited to Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin (who earlier co-wrote Mean Streets), the finished script differed extensively from Schrader's original draft. It was rewritten several times by various writers including Jay Cocks (who went on to co-script later Scorsese films The Age of Innocence and Gangs of New York). The final draft was largely written by Scorsese and Robert De Niro.[32]

The King of Comedy

Scorsese’s next project was his fifth collaboration with Robert De Niro, The King of Comedy (1983). A satire on the world of media and celebrity, it was an obvious departure from the more emotionally committed films he had become associated with. Visually, it was far less kinetic than the style Scorsese had developed up until this point, often using a static camera and long takes.[33] The expressionism of his recent work here gave way to moments of almost total surrealism. It still bore many of Scorsese’s trademarks, however, such as its focus on a troubled loner who ironically becomes famous through a criminal act (murder and kidnapping).[34]

The King of Comedy failed at the box office, but has become increasingly well regarded by critics in the years since its release. German director Wim Wenders numbered it among his 15 favorite films.[35]

After Hours

After the collapse of this project Scorsese again saw his career at a critical point, as he described in the documentary Filming for Your Life: Making 'After Hours' (2004). He saw that in the increasingly commercial world of 1980s Hollywood, the highly stylized and personal 1970s films he and others had built their careers on would not continue to enjoy the same status. Scorsese decided then on an almost totally new approach to his work. With After Hours (1985) he made an aesthetic shift back to a pared-down, almost “underground” film-making style—his way of staying viable. Filmed on an extremely low budget, on location, and at night in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, the film is a black comedy about one increasingly misfortunate night for a mild New York word processor (Griffin Dunne) and featured cameos by such disparate actors as Teri Garr and Cheech and Chong. A bit of a stylistic anomaly for Scorsese, After Hours fits in well with popular low-budget cult films of the 1980s, e.g. Jonathan Demme's Something Wild and Alex Cox's Repo Man.

The Color of Money

Along with the 1987 Michael Jackson music video “Bad,” in 1986 Scorsese made The Color of Money, a sequel to the much admired Robert Rossen film The Hustler (1961) with Paul Newman, which co-starred Tom Cruise. Although adhering to Scorcese’s established style, The Color of Money was the director’s first official foray into mainstream film-making. The film finally won actor Paul Newman an Oscar and gave Scorsese the clout to finally secure backing for a project that had been a longtime goal for him: The Last Temptation of Christ. He also made a brief venture into television, directing an episode of Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories.

The Last Temptation of Christ

After his mid-1980s flirtation with commercial Hollywood, Scorsese made a major return to personal film-making with the Paul Schrader–scripted The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988. Based on Nikos Kazantzakis’s controversial 1960 book, it retold the life of Christ in human rather than divine terms. Even prior to its release the film caused a massive furor, worldwide protests against its blasphemy effectively turning a low budget independent movie into a media sensation.[36] Most controversy centered on the final passages of the film, which depicted Christ marrying and raising a family with Mary Magdalene in a Satan-induced hallucination while on the cross.

Looking past the controversy, The Last Temptation of Christ gained critical acclaim and remains an important work in Scorsese’s canon: an explicit attempt to wrestle with the spirituality underpinning his films up until that point. The director went on to receive his second nomination for a Best Director Academy Award (again unsuccessfully, this time losing to Barry Levinson for Rain Man).

1990s

Goodfellas

After a decade of mostly mixed results, gangster epic Goodfellas (1990) was a return to form for Scorsese and his most confident and fully realized film since Raging Bull. De Niro and Joe Pesci offered a virtuoso display of the director’s bravura cinematic technique in the film and re-established, enhanced, and consolidated his reputation. After the film was released Roger Ebert, a friend and supporter of Scorsese, named Goodfellas “the best mob movie ever” and is ranked No. 1 on Roger’s movie list for 1990, along with Gene Siskel and Peter Travers, the film is widely considered one of the director’s greatest achievements.[37][38][39]

Cape Fear

1991 brought Cape Fear, a remake of a cult 1962 movie of the same name, and the director’s seventh collaboration with De Niro. Another foray into the mainstream, the film was a stylized thriller taking its cues heavily from Alfred Hitchcock and Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955). Cape Fear received a mixed critical reception and was lambasted in many quarters for its scenes depicting misogynistic violence. However, the lurid subject matter did give Scorsese a chance to experiment with a dazzling array of visual tricks and effects. The film garnered two Oscar nominations. Earning $80 million domestically, it would stand as Scorsese’s most commercially successful release until The Aviator (2004), and then The Departed (2006). The film also marked the first time Scorsese used wide-screen Panavision with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1.

The Age of Innocence

The Age of Innocence (1993) was a huge departure for Scorsese, a period adaptation of Edith Wharton–s novel about the constrictive high society of late-19th century New York. It was highly lauded by critics upon original release, but was a box office bomb, making an overall loss. As noted in Scorsese on Scorsese by editor–interviewer Ian Christie, the news that Scorsese wanted to make a film about a failed 19th-century romance raised many eyebrows among the film fraternity; all the more when Scorsese made it clear that it was a personal project and not a studio for-hire job.

Scorsese was interested in doing a “romantic piece.” His friend Jay Cocks gave him the Wharton novel in 1980, suggesting that this should be the romantic piece Scorsese should film as Cocks felt it best represented his sensibility. In Scorsese on Scorsese he noted that

Although the film deals with New York aristocracy and a period of New York history that has been neglected, and although it deals with code and ritual, and with love that's not unrequited but unconsummated—which pretty much covers all the themes I usually deal with—when I read the book, I didn’t say, “Oh good, all those themes are here.”

Scorsese, who was strongly drawn to the characters and the story of Wharton’s text, wanted his film to be as rich an emotional experience as the book was to him rather than the traditional academic adaptations of literary works. To this aim, Scorsese sought influence from diverse period films that made an emotional impact on him. In Scorsese on Scorsese, he documents influences from films such as Luchino Visconti’s Senso and his Il Gattopardo as well as Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons and also Roberto Rossellini’s La prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV. Although The Age of Innocence was ultimately different from these films in terms of narrative, story, and thematic concern, the presence of a lost society, of lost values as well as detailed re-creations of social customs and rituals continues the tradition of these films.

It came back into the public eye, especially in countries such as the UK and France, but still is largely neglected in North America. The film earned five Academy Award nominations (including for Scorsese for Best Adapted Screenplay), winning the Costume Design Oscar.

This was his first collaboration with the Academy Award–winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis, with whom he would work again in Gangs of New York.

Casino

1995’s expansive Casino, like The Age of Innocence before it, focused on a tightly wound male whose well-ordered life is disrupted by the arrival of unpredictable forces. The fact that it was a violent gangster film made it more palatable to fans of the director who perhaps were baffled by the apparent departure of the earlier film. Casino was a box office success,[40] but the film received mixed notices from critics. In large part this was due to its huge stylistic similarities to his earlier Goodfellas, and its excessive violence that garnered it a reputation as possibly the most violent American gangster film ever made. Indeed many of the tropes and tricks of the earlier film resurfaced more or less intact, most obviously the casting of both Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, Pesci once again being an unbridled psychopath. Sharon Stone was nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for her performance.

During the filming Scorsese played a background part as a gambler at one of the tables.

A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies

Scorsese still found time for a four-hour documentary in 1995 offering a thorough trek through American cinema. It covered the silent era to 1969, a year after which Scorsese began his feature career, stating, “I wouldn't feel right commenting on myself or my contemporaries.” In the four-hour documentary, Scorsese lists the four aspects of the director he believes are the most important as (1) the director as storyteller; (2) the director as an illusionist: D.W. Griffith or F. W. Murnau, who created new editing techniques among other innovations that made the appearance of sound and color possible later on; (3) the director as a smuggler—filmmakers such as Douglas Sirk, Samuel Fuller, and Vincente Minnelli, who used to hide subversive messages in their films; and (4) the director as iconoclast.

Kundun

If The Age of Innocence alienated and confused some fans, then Kundun (1997) went several steps further, offering an account of the early life of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, the People’s Liberation Army’s entering of Tibet, and the Dalai Lama's subsequent exile to India. Not least a departure in subject matter, Kundun also saw Scorsese employing a fresh narrative and visual approach. Traditional dramatic devices were substituted for a trance-like meditation achieved through an elaborate tableau of colorful visual images.[41]

The film was a source of turmoil for its distributor, Buena Vista Pictures, which was planning significant expansion into the Chinese market at the time. Initially defiant in the face of pressure from Chinese officials, Disney has since distanced itself from the project, hurting Kundun’s commercial profile.

In the short term, the sheer eclecticism in evidence enhanced the director’s reputation. In the long term, however, it generally appears Kundun has been sidelined in most critical appraisals of the director, mostly noted as a stylistic and thematic detour. Kundun was the director’s second attempt to profile the life of a great religious leader, following The Last Temptation of Christ.

Bringing Out the Dead

Bringing Out the Dead (1999) was a return to familiar territory, with the director and writer Paul Schrader constructing a pitch-black comic take on their own earlier Taxi Driver.[42] Like previous Scorsese–Schrader collaborations, its final scenes of spiritual redemption explicitly recalled the films of Robert Bresson.[43] (It is also worth noting that the film’s incident-filled nocturnal setting is reminiscent of After Hours.) It received generally positive reviews,[44] although not the universal critical acclaim of some of his other films. It stars Nicolas Cage, Ving Rhames, John Goodman, Tom Sizemore, and Patricia Arquette.

2000s

Gangs of New York

In 1999 Scorsese also produced a documentary on Italian filmmakers titled Il Mio Viaggio in Italia, also known as My Voyage to Italy. The documentary foreshadowed the director’s next project, the epic Gangs of New York (2002), influenced by (amongst many others) major Italian directors such as Luchino Visconti and filmed in its entirety at Rome’s famous Cinecittà film studios.

With a production budget said to be in excess of $100 million, Gangs of New York was Scorsese’s biggest and arguably most mainstream venture to date. Like The Age of Innocence, it was set in 19th-century New York, although focusing on the other end of the social scale (and like that film, also starring Daniel Day-Lewis). The film also marked the first collaboration between Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who since then has become a fixture in later Scorsese films.

The production was highly troubled, with many rumors referring to the director’s conflict with Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein.[45] Despite denials of artistic compromise, Gangs of New York revealed itself to be the director’s most conventional film: standard film tropes that the director had traditionally avoided, such as characters existing purely for exposition purposes and explanatory flashbacks, here surfaced in abundance.[46][47][48] The original score composed by regular Scorsese collaborator Elmer Bernstein was rejected at a late stage for a score by Howard Shore and mainstream rock artists U2 and Peter Gabriel.[49] The final cut of the movie ran to 168 minutes, while the director’s original cut was over 180 minutes in length.[46] The film still received generally positive reviews with the review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes reporting that 75 percent of the reviews they tallied for the film were positive and summarizing the critics by saying, “Though flawed, the sprawling, messy Gangs of New York is redeemed by impressive production design and Day-Lewis’s electrifying performance.”[50]

Nonetheless, the themes central to the film were consistent with the director’s established concerns: New York, violence as culturally endemic, and subcultural divisions down ethnic lines.

Originally filmed for a release in the winter of 2001 (to qualify for Academy Award nominations), Scorsese delayed the final production of the film until after the beginning of 2002; the studio consequently delayed the film for nearly a year until its release in the Oscar season of late 2002.[51]

Gangs of New York earned Scorsese his first Golden Globe for Best Director. In February 2003, Gangs of New York received 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis; however, it did not win in any category.

Scorsese also had uncredited involvement as executive producer with the 2002 film Deuces Wild, written by Paul Kimatian.[52]

The Blues

The following year Scorsese completed production of The Blues, an expansive seven-part documentary tracing the history of blues music from its African roots to the Mississippi Delta and beyond. Seven film-makers including Wim Wenders, Clint Eastwood, Mike Figgis, and Scorsese himself each contributed a 90-minute film (Scorsese’s entry was titled “Feel Like Going Home”).

The Aviator

Scorsese's film The Aviator (2004) is a lavish, large-scale biopic of eccentric aviation pioneer and film mogul Howard Hughes and reunited Scorsese with actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The film received highly positive reviews.[53][54][55][56][57] The film also met with widespread box office success and gained Academy recognition.

No Direction Home

No Direction Home is a documentary film by Martin Scorsese that tells of the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on American popular music and culture of the 20th century. The film does not cover Dylan’s entire career; it focuses on his beginnings, his rise to fame in the 1960s, his then-controversial transformation from an acoustic guitar–based musician and performer to an electric guitar–influenced sound and his “retirement” from touring in 1966 following an infamous motorcycle accident. The film was first presented on television in both the United States (as part of the PBSAmerican Masters series) and the United Kingdom (as part of the BBC TwoArena series) on September 26–27, 2005. A DVD version of the film was released that same month. The film won a Peabody Award and the Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video. In addition, Scorsese received an Emmy nomination for it.

The Departed opened to widespread critical acclaim, with some proclaiming it as one of the best efforts Scorsese had brought to the screen since 1990's Goodfellas,[58][59] and still others putting it at the same level as Scorsese’s most celebrated classics Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.[60][61] With domestic box office receipts surpassing $129,402,536, The Departed was Scorsese’s highest grossing film (not accounting for inflation) until 2010’s Shutter Island.

Martin Scorsese’s direction of The Departed earned him his second Golden Globe for Best Director, as well as a Critics’ Choice Award, his first Steven Spielberg. The Departed also received the Academy Award for the Best Motion Picture of 2006, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing by longtime Scorsese editor Thelma Schoonmaker, her third win for a Scorsese film.

Shine a Light

Shine a Light is a concert film of rock and roll band The Rolling Stones’ performances at New York City’s Beacon Theater on October 29 and November 1, 2006, intercut with brief news and interview footage from throughout the band’s career.

The film was initially scheduled for release on September 21, 2007, but Paramount Classics postponed its general release until April 2008. Its world premiere was at the opening of the 58th Berlinale Film Festival on February 7, 2008.

Untitled HBO Rock ’n’ Roll Project

Scorsese directed the pilot for yet untitled 1970s rock ’n’ roll project written by showrunner. The show stars Bobby Cannavale as Richie Finestra, founder and president of top-tier record label set in 1970s New York City drug- and sex-fueled music business as punk and disco were breaking out, all told through the eyes of a record executive trying to resurrect his label and find the next new sound. On July 25, 2014, Mick Jagger tweeted from the set, confirming that the filming had started.[86] Co-stars include Ray Romano as Richie's partner, Olivia Wilde as Richie's wife, Juno Temple, Andrew Dice Clay, Ato Essandoh, Max Casella, and James Jagger. On December 2, 2014 the series was picked up by HBO. Terence Winter is taking over as showrunner, with the pilot written by him and Mastras.[87]

Future films

Scorsese has announced several potential future projects.[88] A documentary feature on Scorsese by artist Melinda Camber Porter was nearly complete when she lost her life to cancer. Scorsese anticipates filming an adaptation of Shūsaku Endō’s novel Silence, a drama about the voyages of two PortugueseJesuit priests in Japan during the 17th Century. Scorsese had originally planned Silence as his next project following Shutter Island.[89] On April 19, 2013, financing was finally secured for Silence by Emmett/Furla Films, with Scorsese to begin shooting in Taiwan in July 2014.[90]

One of Scorsese's next documentary features will be a film on former president Bill Clinton for HBO. "A towering figure who remains a major voice in world issues, President Clinton continues to shape the political dialogue both here and around the world," Scorsese said. "Through intimate conversations, I hope to provide greater insight into this transcendent figure."[95]

Although Scorsese decided to shoot Hugo digitally because it was being photographed in 3D, the The Wolf of Wall Street was originally planned to be shot digitally, even though it was in 2D.[96] Schoonmaker expressed her disappointment with the decision, saying, “It would appear that we’ve lost the battle. I think Marty just feels it’s unfortunately over, and there’s been no bigger champion of film than him.”[97] After extensive comparison tests during preproduction, eventually the majority of the feature was shot on film while scenes that used green screen effects or low light were shot with the Arri Alexa.[96] The film contains 400-450 VFX shots.[96][98] As of December 2013, no announcement had been made on plans for digital or nondigital filming for Scorsese’s next feature film.

In August 2014, the estate of influential punk rock band The Ramones claimed a biopic of the band was in the works with Scorsese's involvement.[99]

Personal life

Scorsese has been married five times. His first wife was Laraine Marie Brennan; they have a daughter, Catherine. He married the writer Julia Cameron in 1976; they have a daughter (Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, who is an actress and appeared in The Age of Innocence), but the marriage lasted only a year. The divorce was acrimonious and served as the basis of Cameron’s first feature, the dark comedy God’s Will,[101] which also starred their daughter, Domenica.[102][103] Their daughter also had a small role in Cape Fear using the name Domenica Scorsese and has continued to act, write, direct, and produce.[104] Scorsese was married to actress Isabella Rossellini from 1979 to their divorce in 1983.[105] He then married producer Barbara De Fina in 1985; their marriage ended in divorce as well, in 1991. Scorsese has been married to Helen Schermerhorn Morris since 1999.[1] They have a daughter, Francesca, who appeared in The Departed and The Aviator. He is based in New York City.

Collaborations with Robert De Niro

Scorsese has frequently collaborated with Robert De Niro, so far making eight films with the actor. After being introduced to him in the early 1970s, Scorsese cast De Niro in his 1973 film Mean Streets. Three years later, De Niro starred in Taxi Driver, this time holding the lead role. De Niro rejoined Scorsese for New York, New York in 1977, but the film was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, their partnership continued into the 1980s, when the pair made Raging Bull, which was highly successful, and The King of Comedy. In the 1990s, De Niro starred in Goodfellas, one of the pair’s most praised films, and 1991’s Cape Fear, before making Casino in 1995. The two also voiced major parts in the 2004 film Shark Tale. Scorsese and De Niro plan to re-unite for a film referred to as The Irishman based on the book I Heard You Paint Houses,[109] although a date for the project is uncertain.

Scorsese's favorite films

In the 2012 Sight and Sound Polls, held every 10 years to select the greatest films of all time, contemporary directors were asked to select 10 films of their choice. Listed below are Scorsese's favorites:

In 2007, Scorsese was honored by the National Italian American Foundation (N.I.A.F.) at the nonprofit’s thirty-second Anniversary Gala. During the ceremony, Scorsese helped launch N.I.A.F.'s Jack Valenti Institute, which provides support to Italian film students in the U.S., in memory of former foundation board member and past president of the Motion Picture Association of America (M.P.A.A.) Jack Valenti. Scorsese received his award from Mary Margaret Valenti, Valenti’s widow. Certain pieces of Scorsese’s film related material and personal papers are contained in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives, to which scholars and media experts from around the world may have full access.[112]

In 2011, Scorsese received an honorary doctorate from the National Film School in Lodz. At the awards ceremony he said, “I feel like I’m a part of this school and that I attended it,” paying tribute to the films of Wajda, Munk, Has, Polanski and Skolimowski.[113]

Director trademarks

Frequent use of slow motion, e.g. Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967), Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).[116] Also known for using freeze frame, such as the opening credits of The King of Comedy (1983), and throughout Goodfellas (1990). Such a shot is also used in Casino (1995) and The Departed (2006).

His blonde leading ladies are usually seen through the eyes of the protagonist as angelic and ethereal; they wear white in their first scene and are photographed in slow motion (Cybill Shepherd in Taxi Driver; Cathy Moriarty's white bikini in Raging Bull; Sharon Stone's white minidress in Casino).[117] This may possibly be a nod to director Alfred Hitchcock.[118]

Use of MOS sequences set to popular music or voice-over, often involving aggressive camera movement and/or rapid editing.[120]

Often has a quick cameo in his films (Who's That Knocking at My Door, Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Last Temptation of Christ (albeit hidden under a hood), The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York, Hugo). Also, often contributes his voice to a film without showing his face on screen. He provides the opening voice-over narration in Mean Streets and The Color of Money; plays the off-screen dressing room attendant in the final scene of Raging Bull; provides the voice of the unseen ambulance dispatcher in Bringing Out the Dead.[121]

Sometimes highlights characters in a scene with an iris, an homage to 1920s silent film cinema (as scenes at the time sometimes used this transition). This effect can be seen in Casino (it is used on Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci), Life Lessons, The Departed (on Matt Damon), and Hugo.

More recently, his films have featured corrupt authority figures, such as policemen in The Departed[122] and politicians in Gangs of New York[123] and The Aviator.[124]

Guilt is a prominent theme in many of his films, as is the role of Catholicism in creating and dealing with guilt (Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Bringing Out the Dead, Mean Streets, Who's That Knocking at My Door, The Departed, Shutter Island).

Filmography

See also

References

^ ab"#83 Royal Descents, Notable Kin, and Printed Sources: A Third Set of Ten Hollywood Figures (or Groups Thereof), with a Coda on Two Directors". Americanancestors.org. November 22, 2011. Retrieved January 5, 2012.

^His own pronunciation in the television show Entourage (Season 5, episode 12).

^; Italian pronunciation: is also commonly used by the public in the US.

^Bosley, Rachael K. , a 19th-century tale of vengeance and valor set in the city’s most notorious neighborhood"Gangs of New York"Michael Ballhaus, ASC takes on Martin Scorsese's . Theasc.com. Retrieved March 3, 2010.

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